When you are engulfed in flames - By David Sedaris Page 0,86

that continued to allow smoking constructed hideous tanks.

The ones in Salt Lake City were kept in good condition, but those in St. Louis and Atlanta were miniature, glass-walled slums: ashtrays never emptied, trash on the ground, air ducts exposed and sagging from the caramel-colored ceiling. Then there were the people. My old friend with the hole in his throat was always there, as was his wife, who had a suitcase in one hand and an oxygen tank in the other. Alongside her were the servicemen from Abu Ghraib, two prisoners handcuffed to federal agents, and the Joad family. It was a live antismoking commercial, and those passing by would often stop and point, especially if they were with children. “See that lady with the tube taped to her nose? Is that what you want to happen to you?”

In one of these tanks, I sat beside a woman whose two-year-old son was confined to a wheelchair. This drew the sort of crowd that normally waves torches, and I admired the way the mother ignored it. After hot-boxing three quarters of her Salem, she tossed the butt in the direction of the ashtray, saying, “Damn, that was good.”

As nasty as the tanks could be, I never turned my back on one. The only other choice was to go outside, which became increasingly complicated and time-consuming after September 11. In a big-city airport, it would likely take half an hour just to reach the main entrance, after which you’d have to walk ten, then twenty, then fifty yards from the door. Cars the size of school buses would pass, and the driver, who was most often the only person on board, would give you that particular look, meaning, “Hey, Mr. Puffing on Your Cigarette, thanks a lot for ruining our air.”

As the new century advanced, more and more places went completely smoke-free. This included all the Marriott hotels. That in itself didn’t bother me so much — Screw them, I thought — but Marriott owns the Ritz-Carltons, and when they followed suit I sat on my suitcase and cried.

Not just businesses, but entire towns have since banned smoking. They’re generally not the most vital places on the map, but still they wanted to send a message. If you thought you could enjoy a cigarette in one of their bars or restaurants, then think again, and the same goes for their hotel rooms. Knowing that a traveler would not be smoking while sitting at his desk at the Palookaville Hyatt: I guess this allowed the townspeople to sleep a little easier at night. For me it marked the beginning of the end.

I don’t know why bad ideas spread faster than good ones, but they do. Across the board, smoking bans came into effect, and I began to find myself outside the city limits, on that ubiquitous commercial strip between the waffle restaurant and the muffler shop. You may not have noticed, but there’s a hotel there. It doesn’t have a pool, yet still the lobby smells like chlorine, with just a slight trace of French fries. Should you order the latter off the room service menu, and find yourself in need of more ketchup, just wipe some off your telephone, or off the knob to the wall-mounted heating and air-conditioning unit. There’s mustard there too. I’ve seen it.

The only thing worse than a room in this hotel is a smoking room in this hotel. With a little fresh air, it wouldn’t be quite so awful, but, nine times out of ten, the windows have been soldered shut. Either that, or they open only a quarter of an inch, this in case you need to toss out a slice of toast. The trapped and stagnant smoke is treated with an aerosol spray, the effectiveness of which tends to vary. At best it recalls a loaded ashtray, the butts soaking in a shallow pool of lemonade. At worst it smells like a burning mummy.

The hotels I found myself reduced to had posters hanging in the elevators. “Our Deep Dish Pizza Is Pantastic!!!” one of them read. Others mentioned steak fingers or “appeteazers,” available until 10:00 at Perspectives or Horizons, always billed as “The place to see and be seen!” Go to your room, and there are more pictures of food, most in the form of three-dimensional flyers propped beside the telephone and clock radio. If it’s rare to find a really good photograph of bacon, it’s rarer still to find one on your bedside table. The